Saturday, August 19, 2006
RECOUNTS PROVED FRAUD IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
DOWNLOadews from original available at http://s5.quicksharing.com/v/1148315/Recount_Finds_Fraud_in_Mexican_Election.doc.html
Background
Election
The July 2nd Mexican presidential election has been hotly disputed on the Net, in the courts, and upon streets. Preliminary results were broadcast live to the Internet allowing for unprecedented analysis that showed immediate statistical problems.[1] Subsequent vote tallies showed even more widespread irregularities and discrepancies.
Of 117,287 polling places, 72,197 sites reported tally sheets that did not add up. These errors throw into dispute 62% of the vote. Some polling sites reported more votes than ballots resulting in the addition of 898,862 votes. Other sites reported fewer votes than ballots eliminating 722,326 votes. As a result, the electoral system could not account for a total of 1,621,188 votes.
The difference between the two candidates—Felipe Calderón of the PAN and López Obrador of the PRD—was only 243,000 votes or 0.58% of the tally. Consequently, the tally-sheet irregularities and polling discrepancies were more than enough to throw the election.
Aftermath
Although there was an immediate demand for a recount, the opposition resisted and the electoral system dragged its feet. As a result the PRD prosecuted its case in the courts, before the media, and upon the streets with non-violent demonstrations.[2]
These demonstrations have been the largest and longest lived in Mexico's history. The marches in Mexico City alone have had upwards of 2.4 million people occupying the central two-kilometer core of the city and stretching down the main city avenue—La Reforma—for over ten kilometers.[3]
The protestors then camped out, paralyzing the capital. Almost a month later, tens of thousands still occupy the central core and the most important arteries of the city. The current encampment runs from the central plaza, or Zócalo, down the Avenida Reforma to the Fountain of Petroleos on the Periférico beltway. On the Avenida Hidalgo, it encompasses the downtown central park, of La Alameda and runs down Hidalgo to the Zócalo in a swath flanked by Francisco and Madero.[4]
These crowds and their candidate have demanded a full recount of the 62% of the polling places showing irregularities. The opposition has been adamant that no recount was necessary. The Electoral Tribunal has been slow to act for either party. It has refused to certify the election, but must do so by September 6th. Last week, it agreed to a partial recount, but it was unwilling to recount more than 9% of the polling places.
Today, the nation hangs at a chaotic inflection point. The Electoral Tribunal reported the results of its limited recount. Police fired tear gas at opposition-party senators and then shoved and beat them in front of the Chamber of Deputies.[5]
Recount finds Fraud
The Upper Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal—a division of Mexican Department of Justice—has concluded its recount of 9% of polling places from the July 2nd presidential election. This recount proves that in this election there was organized, systematic, and massive fraud. The recount has found hundreds of thousands of votes that were introduced or subtracted illegally in the voting boxes as well as thousands of falsified tallies. This fraud changed the real results of the citizens' vote and has led to a usurpation and frustration of the popular will.
Five results
First result
Goal
The Tribunal had one central aim when it ordered a review of one in seven of the 72,197 disputed polling places. It sought to determine whether the discrepancies found in the tally sheets were either
A) The result of arithmetic errors fixable by the recount itself or
B) The result of serious irregularities that could not be dismissed
The recount has found that a majority of the tally-sheet problems are not arithmetic. They result from either the introduction or subtraction of votes. In Mexico, the verb for ballot stuffing is se taquearon, as ballots are stuffed like a taco. The verb for robbing votes is the same as in the USA, se robaron
Findings
Stuffing—The review has found that 58,056 votes were introduced illegally or stuffed. Specifically, the recount found that, in 3,873 polling places (or 33%), there was an average of 5 votes too many per site.
Robbing—The review has also found that 61,688 votes were illegitimately subtracted or robbed. Specifically, the recount found that, in 3,659 polling places (or 31%), there was an average of 5.2 votes missing per site.
Fraud—Thus, the total number of polling places where votes were illegally added or subtracted sums to 7,532 (or 65%), and the total number of altered votes is 119,744.
Results
These findings undermine the election. The recount confirms and quantifies problems that it cannot repair. The Tribunal cannot count robbed votes. It also cannot identify which ballots were stuffed and which were legitimately cast by citizens. All stuffed ballots were printed by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).
Thus, if the Tribunal is to act impartially to cleanse the election, it must annul results from polling sites that have grave and irreparable irregularities. These irregularities put in question the fairness and impartiality of the process as well as erase any certainty about the reported tallies for candidates.
Article number 75 of Mexico's election law—la Ley General del Sistema de Medios de Impugnación en Materia Electoral—states that polling places will be nullified when “(k) there exists grave irregularities, plainly witnessed and not repairable, during the election or in the counting and tallying of votes, that are evident, put in doubt the certainty of the vote, and are determinative for the results of the vote.”[6]
Second result
The review has also found injurious falsification during the counting of ballot boxes. Numbers were reported for thousands of ballot boxes that bear no relationship to the will of the electorate. Although there might have been errors in the count, it is not these problems that modify the results.
The recount found variations in the data of 81% of the ballot-box counts. The votes obtained by López Obrador show practically no variation. Hence he would only lose 43 votes out of all the recounted boxes. In contrast, Felipe Calderón receives on paper 13,335 votes that never existed in 4,969 polling places (43% of the sites reviewed). On average, he was given 1.14 extra and illegitimate votes per site. The PAN has tried to dismiss these additions as “comprehensible human error,” but these errors only went one way. Felipe Calderón benefitted over López Obrador by more than 31 thousand per cent.[7] This asymmetry is proof of massive and deliberate falsification.
Third result
The review has found that sealed electoral packages have been opened and tampered with after the district tallies. In practically all of the districts reviewed, the Tribunal found tens of thousands of packages without seals. It also found hundreds of thousands of envelopes containing the electoral vote with broken seals or without witness signatures. In addition, it also found electoral packages that were disappeared. These results show that there was illegal manipulation of the packages, the envelopes, and the electoral ballots before, during, and after the district tally.
Fourth result
The Electoral Tribunal had to order a new and partial tally because the General Counsel of the IFE and the District Counsels were remiss in the accomplishment of their legal obligations and abused their authority. Specifically, these functionaries of the IFE violated the Constitution of the Republic as well as with the Federal Code of Electoral Procedures. They broke or failed to apply these laws with premeditation, treachery, and to gain advantage for the party in power. Their goal was to cover the evident defrauding and manipulation of the electoral process.
presidential election
The Electoral Tribunal has conducted a limited recount that is insufficient for guaranteeing the results of the presidential election. Hence it has failed to fulfill the legal requirement of Article 41 of the Mexican Constitution. Nevertheless, its recount provides a well-documented sample population that can be used to extrapolate nationally. These extrapolations show the magnitude of the fraud.
At a national level, Felipe Calderón gained 651,538 fraudulent votes at polling places. He also had another 149,653 votes added through falsified box tallies. In contrast, López Obrador had 692,299 votes eliminated illegally. If these irregularities are corrected, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wins the July 2nd election by nearly 1.5 million votes.
These results show that the popular will, as expressed in ballot boxes, has so far been usurped. The demand for full recount is sensible, legal, possible, and necessary. This demand has been expressed by the majority of the people of México. They demand that the presidential election be cleaned up vote by vote and poll by poll.
This popular demand has now received new legal support from the Electoral Tribunal recount. We hope that the Electoral Tribunal is up to the next challenge. It must resolve the problem of fraud in accordance with our Constitution and laws. The people of México deserve to know the truth and deserve a legitimately elected president.
May the citizen's will be respected!
May the election be cleansed!
Vote by vote and poll by poll!
We will not accept the imposition of a spurious president!
Long live passive civil resistance!
Coalition for the Good of All
México City, D. F. 15th of August, 2006.
[1] See http://em.fis.unam.mx/~mochan/elecciones/
[2] See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/opinion/11lopezobrador.html as well as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdP86OWRPoQ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WPSaKoeuFM
[3] The mobilization of Sunday 7/30 had crowd estimates ranging from a high of 3 million to a low of 180 thousand by the Federal Police. Although the AP press reported 2 million, the Mexico City police estimated 2.4 million. Images in the We Are Many PowerPoint support the higher estimates.
[4] For a map of the central city, see http://www.allaboutmexicocity.com/histcentermap.htm or http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&addtohistory=&address=&city=Mexico%20City&state=Mexico&zipcode=&country=MX&location=z3iCh0EKn0UAmU%2fiQEdsy1AVr9XmjydWWB%2bxu8MxtMpbF%2bSxY1khJqJYJJR5x66cPl0Jkhdd%2bgEL91E5b5xXDzjhyLMg1QziNeoNR7Gddmg%3d&ambiguity=1
[5] See videos at http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/graficos/a/videos_amlo/videos-sanlazaro.htm#
[6] Las causales de nulidad de casillas: “k) Existir irregularidades graves, plenamente acreditadas y no reparables durante la jornada electoral o en las actas de escrutinio y cómputo que, en forma evidente, pongan en duda la certeza de la votación y sean determinantes para el resultado de la misma.”
[7] This percentage does not include votes withdrawn by the Tribunal.
Background
Election
The July 2nd Mexican presidential election has been hotly disputed on the Net, in the courts, and upon streets. Preliminary results were broadcast live to the Internet allowing for unprecedented analysis that showed immediate statistical problems.[1] Subsequent vote tallies showed even more widespread irregularities and discrepancies.
Of 117,287 polling places, 72,197 sites reported tally sheets that did not add up. These errors throw into dispute 62% of the vote. Some polling sites reported more votes than ballots resulting in the addition of 898,862 votes. Other sites reported fewer votes than ballots eliminating 722,326 votes. As a result, the electoral system could not account for a total of 1,621,188 votes.
The difference between the two candidates—Felipe Calderón of the PAN and López Obrador of the PRD—was only 243,000 votes or 0.58% of the tally. Consequently, the tally-sheet irregularities and polling discrepancies were more than enough to throw the election.
Aftermath
Although there was an immediate demand for a recount, the opposition resisted and the electoral system dragged its feet. As a result the PRD prosecuted its case in the courts, before the media, and upon the streets with non-violent demonstrations.[2]
These demonstrations have been the largest and longest lived in Mexico's history. The marches in Mexico City alone have had upwards of 2.4 million people occupying the central two-kilometer core of the city and stretching down the main city avenue—La Reforma—for over ten kilometers.[3]
The protestors then camped out, paralyzing the capital. Almost a month later, tens of thousands still occupy the central core and the most important arteries of the city. The current encampment runs from the central plaza, or Zócalo, down the Avenida Reforma to the Fountain of Petroleos on the Periférico beltway. On the Avenida Hidalgo, it encompasses the downtown central park, of La Alameda and runs down Hidalgo to the Zócalo in a swath flanked by Francisco and Madero.[4]
These crowds and their candidate have demanded a full recount of the 62% of the polling places showing irregularities. The opposition has been adamant that no recount was necessary. The Electoral Tribunal has been slow to act for either party. It has refused to certify the election, but must do so by September 6th. Last week, it agreed to a partial recount, but it was unwilling to recount more than 9% of the polling places.
Today, the nation hangs at a chaotic inflection point. The Electoral Tribunal reported the results of its limited recount. Police fired tear gas at opposition-party senators and then shoved and beat them in front of the Chamber of Deputies.[5]
Recount finds Fraud
The Upper Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal—a division of Mexican Department of Justice—has concluded its recount of 9% of polling places from the July 2nd presidential election. This recount proves that in this election there was organized, systematic, and massive fraud. The recount has found hundreds of thousands of votes that were introduced or subtracted illegally in the voting boxes as well as thousands of falsified tallies. This fraud changed the real results of the citizens' vote and has led to a usurpation and frustration of the popular will.
Five results
First result
Goal
The Tribunal had one central aim when it ordered a review of one in seven of the 72,197 disputed polling places. It sought to determine whether the discrepancies found in the tally sheets were either
A) The result of arithmetic errors fixable by the recount itself or
B) The result of serious irregularities that could not be dismissed
The recount has found that a majority of the tally-sheet problems are not arithmetic. They result from either the introduction or subtraction of votes. In Mexico, the verb for ballot stuffing is se taquearon, as ballots are stuffed like a taco. The verb for robbing votes is the same as in the USA, se robaron
Findings
Stuffing—The review has found that 58,056 votes were introduced illegally or stuffed. Specifically, the recount found that, in 3,873 polling places (or 33%), there was an average of 5 votes too many per site.
Robbing—The review has also found that 61,688 votes were illegitimately subtracted or robbed. Specifically, the recount found that, in 3,659 polling places (or 31%), there was an average of 5.2 votes missing per site.
Fraud—Thus, the total number of polling places where votes were illegally added or subtracted sums to 7,532 (or 65%), and the total number of altered votes is 119,744.
Results
These findings undermine the election. The recount confirms and quantifies problems that it cannot repair. The Tribunal cannot count robbed votes. It also cannot identify which ballots were stuffed and which were legitimately cast by citizens. All stuffed ballots were printed by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).
Thus, if the Tribunal is to act impartially to cleanse the election, it must annul results from polling sites that have grave and irreparable irregularities. These irregularities put in question the fairness and impartiality of the process as well as erase any certainty about the reported tallies for candidates.
Article number 75 of Mexico's election law—la Ley General del Sistema de Medios de Impugnación en Materia Electoral—states that polling places will be nullified when “(k) there exists grave irregularities, plainly witnessed and not repairable, during the election or in the counting and tallying of votes, that are evident, put in doubt the certainty of the vote, and are determinative for the results of the vote.”[6]
Second result
The review has also found injurious falsification during the counting of ballot boxes. Numbers were reported for thousands of ballot boxes that bear no relationship to the will of the electorate. Although there might have been errors in the count, it is not these problems that modify the results.
The recount found variations in the data of 81% of the ballot-box counts. The votes obtained by López Obrador show practically no variation. Hence he would only lose 43 votes out of all the recounted boxes. In contrast, Felipe Calderón receives on paper 13,335 votes that never existed in 4,969 polling places (43% of the sites reviewed). On average, he was given 1.14 extra and illegitimate votes per site. The PAN has tried to dismiss these additions as “comprehensible human error,” but these errors only went one way. Felipe Calderón benefitted over López Obrador by more than 31 thousand per cent.[7] This asymmetry is proof of massive and deliberate falsification.
Third result
The review has found that sealed electoral packages have been opened and tampered with after the district tallies. In practically all of the districts reviewed, the Tribunal found tens of thousands of packages without seals. It also found hundreds of thousands of envelopes containing the electoral vote with broken seals or without witness signatures. In addition, it also found electoral packages that were disappeared. These results show that there was illegal manipulation of the packages, the envelopes, and the electoral ballots before, during, and after the district tally.
Fourth result
The Electoral Tribunal had to order a new and partial tally because the General Counsel of the IFE and the District Counsels were remiss in the accomplishment of their legal obligations and abused their authority. Specifically, these functionaries of the IFE violated the Constitution of the Republic as well as with the Federal Code of Electoral Procedures. They broke or failed to apply these laws with premeditation, treachery, and to gain advantage for the party in power. Their goal was to cover the evident defrauding and manipulation of the electoral process.
presidential election
The Electoral Tribunal has conducted a limited recount that is insufficient for guaranteeing the results of the presidential election. Hence it has failed to fulfill the legal requirement of Article 41 of the Mexican Constitution. Nevertheless, its recount provides a well-documented sample population that can be used to extrapolate nationally. These extrapolations show the magnitude of the fraud.
At a national level, Felipe Calderón gained 651,538 fraudulent votes at polling places. He also had another 149,653 votes added through falsified box tallies. In contrast, López Obrador had 692,299 votes eliminated illegally. If these irregularities are corrected, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wins the July 2nd election by nearly 1.5 million votes.
These results show that the popular will, as expressed in ballot boxes, has so far been usurped. The demand for full recount is sensible, legal, possible, and necessary. This demand has been expressed by the majority of the people of México. They demand that the presidential election be cleaned up vote by vote and poll by poll.
This popular demand has now received new legal support from the Electoral Tribunal recount. We hope that the Electoral Tribunal is up to the next challenge. It must resolve the problem of fraud in accordance with our Constitution and laws. The people of México deserve to know the truth and deserve a legitimately elected president.
May the citizen's will be respected!
May the election be cleansed!
Vote by vote and poll by poll!
We will not accept the imposition of a spurious president!
Long live passive civil resistance!
Coalition for the Good of All
México City, D. F. 15th of August, 2006.
[1] See http://em.fis.unam.mx/~mochan/elecciones/
[2] See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/opinion/11lopezobrador.html as well as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdP86OWRPoQ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WPSaKoeuFM
[3] The mobilization of Sunday 7/30 had crowd estimates ranging from a high of 3 million to a low of 180 thousand by the Federal Police. Although the AP press reported 2 million, the Mexico City police estimated 2.4 million. Images in the We Are Many PowerPoint support the higher estimates.
[4] For a map of the central city, see http://www.allaboutmexicocity.com/histcentermap.htm or http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&addtohistory=&address=&city=Mexico%20City&state=Mexico&zipcode=&country=MX&location=z3iCh0EKn0UAmU%2fiQEdsy1AVr9XmjydWWB%2bxu8MxtMpbF%2bSxY1khJqJYJJR5x66cPl0Jkhdd%2bgEL91E5b5xXDzjhyLMg1QziNeoNR7Gddmg%3d&ambiguity=1
[5] See videos at http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/graficos/a/videos_amlo/videos-sanlazaro.htm#
[6] Las causales de nulidad de casillas: “k) Existir irregularidades graves, plenamente acreditadas y no reparables durante la jornada electoral o en las actas de escrutinio y cómputo que, en forma evidente, pongan en duda la certeza de la votación y sean determinantes para el resultado de la misma.”
[7] This percentage does not include votes withdrawn by the Tribunal.
# posted by Nancy T. @ 2:33 PM 
